The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced plans to hand over the operations and maintenance of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company and the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company to private operators.
This strategic move is intended to engage reputable and credible Operations and Maintenance (O&M) companies to manage these facilities more effectively.
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The announcement was made on Friday through NNPCL’s official handle on X, signaling a shift in how these major refineries will be managed in the future.
The Warri Refinery, located in Delta State, was commissioned in 1978. It is a complex conversion refinery with a nameplate distillation capacity of 6.25 million metric tons per annum (MTA), which is equivalent to 125,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The refinery complex also includes a petrochemical plant, which was commissioned in 1988. This plant has the capacity to produce 13,000 MTA of polypropylene and 18,000 MTA of carbon black, primarily supplying petroleum products to markets in the southern and southwestern regions of Nigeria.
Similarly, the Kaduna Refinery was commissioned in 1980 to meet the petroleum needs of Northern Nigeria, starting with an initial capacity of 50,000 barrels per day (B/D). In 1983, a second crude train was added, doubling the capacity to 100,000 B/D, dedicated to the production of lubricating oils.
Further expansion in 1986 increased the capacity of the first crude train to 60,000 B/D, bringing the total nameplate capacity of the refinery to 110,000 B/D.
